


here's to the ghost of something to remember

by DreamsAndDragons



Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: First Meetings, Introspection, Last Meetings, Light Angst, M/M, Really just a lot of introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26162485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsAndDragons/pseuds/DreamsAndDragons
Summary: The first time that is also the last time. He’s nervous, he realises. He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s done it before, of course, but it’s never easy - meeting people for the first time, when he’s already seen them in the field. When he’s commanded them. When he’s seen them die.
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 119
Collections: tenet huh





	here's to the ghost of something to remember

The first time that is also the last time. He’s nervous, he realises. He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s done it before, of course, but it’s never easy - meeting people for the first time, when he’s already seen them in the field. When he’s commanded them. When he’s seen them die. There is blood on his hands, he knows, and the worst part is that he doesn’t always know that it’s his fault until later, when he gives the order that will kill someone in the past. Hard to live with, sometimes. Easier to just keep moving. And he seems always to be moving - on ships, on buses, on planes - or otherwise in liminal spaces, waiting, passing through. Moving through time and space. Looking in both directions. Aware that even the present is always in danger, always at risk of rupturing if he makes the wrong move, if he doesn’t look forward, if he doesn’t look back. 

He’s looking back today, though. Remembering. The past isn’t sacred, he knows. It could change - has changed, often, because he needed it to. But his memories? No one can replace those. And Neil? His memories of Neil are kept in a vault in his mind that no-one can steal. But Neil - this Neil, the one in a hospital bed on the other side of a door he can’t bring himself to go through yet, this Neil doesn’t remember him. This Neil doesn’t know him yet. 

It’s probably not the last time, he knows. Despite the years that have passed since their first meeting - first meeting for him, anyway - and the jobs they’ve done together, he still doesn’t know exactly when he sends Neil back to find him in the past. ‘Ignorance is ammunition,’ Neil always said. He doesn’t know which one of them said it first. He and Neil probably keep heading in the same direction for a while. Maybe they do a few more jobs. Maybe Neil falls in love, this side. Neil kept some secrets till the end. Till this beginning. 

You can’t think about it too much. The way it loops around. How his older self could only have known to send Neil because his younger self knew that his older self sent him, which means he must have always been going to send him back. Sometimes it still makes his head hurt. So he thinks about Neil, instead, about his charming smile. The sinew of his forearms with his rolled-up sleeves. His confidence with a gun. How Neil saved him because he had to, to save the future, but also because he wanted to. Wanting. The months he spent with Neil, hunting down plutonium, dealing with loose ends, recruiting new agents. Months still occasionally thinking about Kat, hoping she was okay, before he realised that sense of protectiveness wasn’t love, just a sense of respect and admiration, an acknowledgement that they had survived something together. Months before he realised he was in love with Neil, and then several more months pining, thinking his feelings weren’t reciprocated, until Mombasa happened and it turned out Neil felt the same way and had been waiting for his feelings to catch up, thinking it might take years. 

Sometimes it’s difficult, living in two directions. Meeting in the middle sometimes, waiting for the action. More liminal spaces. But they learnt to love in those liminal spaces, in lobbies and corridors and waiting rooms, in airport lounges and train stations. Hiding the algorithm and coming back tired and worn down. Finding Neil in museums and seafronts and hotel bars. Pressing up against him in hotel rooms and tents and warzones, a few times, covered in blood and needing, in that moment, a human touch that wasn’t a kick or a punch. How careful he’d tried to be, with needing. He’d always been good at compartmentalising. But Neil already knew that, already knew everything - more than he’d ever expected to share. So he’d felt himself relax, allowed himself to be vulnerable. After all, Neil had saved his life. Saved it many times over, and he’d tried to repay that debt whenever he could, knowing always that at one time he would fail - had already failed. 

Perhaps it’s the weight of that failure that keeps him from walking through that door. Perhaps it is simply the unnameable fear, the thing inside him that reminds him that he knows everything about the man in the hospital bed, but Neil knows nothing about him. What if he makes a bad first impression? What if this Neil doesn’t like him? But that’s stupid, and not just because he sounds like a lovestruck teen. He knows Neil likes him - loves him, even, at some point - because they’ve already met. They’ve already known each other’s deepest secrets, fears, desires. And Neil has loved him through all that, has loved him even when he didn’t known Neil, had no inkling of what they would mean to each other. He can show this Neil the same courtesy, the same kindness, that Neil had shown him. 

He looks at his reflection in the window, hand on the doorknob. He never really takes the time to look at himself, these days, only checking that his disguises work. Fancy watch, expensive suit - no more Brooks Brothers for him. It makes him look... Prestigious. In charge. Should he have worn something else instead? A T-Shirt, maybe, to make him look more normal, more relaxed? No. He’s here in his capacity as head of the operation, first and foremost. He should look the part. But does he look more serious than before? He frowns at himself, but that makes him look even more stern. He tries smiling instead, but that’s too much. A wry smile, a chuckle, a shake of the head. He reminds himself firmly that none of it matters anyway and opens the door. 

Neil is lying in bed, not in his usual shirt and jacket but in a hospital gown, a bandage around his midsection where he’s been shot. Neil looks a little pale, but otherwise seems healthy. The Protagonist has been told as much, and of course he knows Neil survived, but some part of him was afraid anyway. He feels that part of him relax, and allows himself to see how beautiful Neil looks. His blonde hair shines even under the harsh hospital lights. Lounging in bed, one toned arm supporting his head, Neil looks almost rakish - a word the Protagonist never uses, but which seems fitting here. Neil is so beautiful it breaks his heart. He wants to touch Neil, wants to feel his heartbeat thrum under his skin, but he can’t anymore. Neil looks at him and there is no recognition in his eyes - the Protagonist has steeled himself for that - but the bright spark of curiosity there fills him with hope. 

‘Welcome to the after-life,’ the Protagonist says, walking into the room and taking the seat by the bed. 

‘Where am I?’ Neil asks. ‘What happened?’

‘You died. Your new life is just beginning.’ 

When Neil opens his mouth - to ask more questions, to complain about him being so cryptic - the Protagonist stops him. ‘I’ll explain everything. But first: a drink.’ 

He rings the bell by Neil’s bed and, when one of his agents comes rushing in, says: ‘a Diet Coke for me, and a vodka tonic for him’. It isn’t the man’s job, and this isn’t a bar, but nobody here will question him. 

‘I prefer soda water,’ Neil says, pushing himself up and looking at the Protagonist suspiciously. 

‘No, you don’t,’ he replies. Neil quirks an eyebrow, an amused smile teasing at the edges of his mouth, and lies back down, his curiosity piqued. 

‘So tell me, what am I doing here?’

The Protagonist smiles. This is going to be fun. 

He needn’t have worried. Not when he already knows the ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Howl & The Hum - Sweet Fading Silver.
> 
> So I need to rewatch the film because some of it still confuses me, but in the meantime I wrote this little vignette. Hope you enjoy.


End file.
